Terry Shilton

The Hawks open the regular season in Buffalo, and will have to make up for more than the loss of our “12th Man”. The suspensions to Rocky Bernard and Jordan Babineaux for conduct detrimental to the league, combined with injuries to Bobby Engram, Deion Branch, Ben Obamnu and the fact the fact Patrick Kerney and Lofa Tatupu are hurting have to be giving the upstart Buffalo Bills confidence going into Sunday’s game.  

Opponent Overview

The Bills have a much improved defense adding Marcus Stroud and Kawika Mitchell, and are finally healthy, having Paul Poluszny and Ko Simpson back from injury will help their overall defense especially against the run. The Bills will have to prove better against the pass if they hope to realize their playoff goals. Last season they finished 29th in the league against the pass and although they finished 12th after the pre-season expect teams to try to exploit them here as both starting corners: Jabari Greer, Terrence Mcgee, from that 29th ranked defense return this season as starters. The Bills offense is a question mark, we know they can run the ball led by Marshawn Lynch and late season practice roster breakout Fred Jackson, the Bills will likely average 100 plus yards a game placing them near the upper echelon teams in terms of running the ball. But can they pass with any consistency? they unveiled a new offense this pre-season that promised to throw down field more often but still finished the pre-season 30th in passing yards.

Keys To Victory 

OFFENSE

1. The Hawks will have run the ball effectively to set up play action, to often last year we became one dimensional and threw every down, it did win games but week 1 we are missing 3 of our top 4 recievers in Deion Branch, Bobby Engram and Ben Obmanu.

2. Protect the Ball, the Bills defense created a lot of turnovers in pre-season, if we turn it over it will give them confidence, and their offense points. That said at times in the secondary this aggressiveness can be used against them.

3. Receivers, all but Nate Burleson would not have seen much playing time in this game if not for injuries, Logan Payne and Jordan Kent will have to step up for the Hawks to win, I’d like to see them both get involved early.

DEFENSE

1. Stop the Run, without the huge presence of Rocky Bernard at defensive tackle to keep blockers off of Lofa Tatupu the linebackers are going to have to be extra good to keep Marshawn Lynch under the century mark rushing.

2. Pressure Trent Edwards, the Bills quarterback did not see a lot of pre-season game action, pressure combined with inexperience and a little rust should equal turnovers.

Key Matchups

Marshawn Lynch vs Lofa Tatupu: The man to pace the Bills offense against the man charged to stop him, if the Bills Rush for more than 115 yards they will win this game.

Langston Walker Vs Lawrence Jackson and Julian Peterson: Left Tackle Langston Walker, is replacing Pro-Bowl holdout Jason Peters. Langston is very strong but nowhere nears as mobile, speed rushes by rookie defensive end Lawrence Jackson, and linebacker Julian Peterson will trouble him but the Bills can not afford to double here as Patrick Kerney is on the other side.

Julius Jones vs Himself: Julius comes on as the Hawks apparent starter and with injuries on the passing game needs to be effective for the Hawks to win, he has had a very public chip on his shoulder about losing the job just before the playoffs with the Cowboys last season; now it’s put up or shut up time.

Matt Hasselback vs The Bills secondary, Matt will look to expose the Bills weakness, the Bills are young and aggressive and Matt is calm and collected, Hawks win it Matt goes over 250 passing yards with completions to 5 different recievers.

The Line

Right now Vegas likes the Bills, the spread is close at the Bills plus a point, with the Bills favored to outright win slightly at -110, and the over/under at 39.5

Myself I see the Hawks taking this one in a close game 21-17 the Hawks win, Bills don’t cover the spread and the game stays under.

The Long and Short of it

The Bills defense is improved but not enough to handle the pre-season’s top ranked offense the Hawks will be able to sustain drives and the experience of Matt Hasselback will be the difference. Matt will be able to convert on those 3 down and 6-9 yard plays against the Bills suspect secondary. The Bills will be able to run the ball on us and may break the century mark but our defense will bend and not break those same 3 and longish plays will prove to much for the Bills young QB.

In short this game is won on third downs, Third down conversion percentage will be the key stat which ever team wins there, wins Sunday.

For more on our week one match up visit www.sportstalkbuzz.com Bills blogger: Tim Anderson 

Please check back with Hawk Talk after the game, for all your Seahawk news and analysis until then this Hawk Talk.

Terry Shilton

The 2008 version of the Hawks are set, to get to the 53 man limit the following moves were made:

Placed on Injured Reserve
WR Ben Obomanu
DT Chris Cooper

Terminated Veteran Contacts:
WR Bryan Gilmore
DT Larry Tripplett

Waived:
DB Jamar Adams
QB Dalton Bell
DT Kevin Brown
WR Michael Bumpus
C Ben Claxton
DB Marquis Floyd
P Reggie Hodges
DB Kelin Johnson
C Nick Jones
FB David Kirtman
G Pat Murray
TE Joe Newton
LB Dallas Sartz
WR Trent Shelton
DE Nu’u Tafisi
T Kyle Williams

The only real surprises came from what moves the Hawks didn’t make, it was expected one running back and one kicker would be cut to get the team to the 53 man limit. I am surprised at the kicking position that both Mare and Coutuu made the team as neither guy is a “kickoff specialist” and as rhythm is everything for a kicker I can not see how both would get an opportunity to kick in the regular season. The team must have believed that the loser of thisposition battle, likely Coutuu would not clear waivers, so instead they chose to hang onto him as some sort of injury insurance policy.

At running back as I hoped Justin Forsett makes the team, again the feeling that Justin would not clear waivers could have played a factor, he may not get alot of opportunity to carry the ball especially early on but he will get some opportunities on special teams.

The one challenge to this new found backfield depth will be dividing the time, Julius Jones, Mo Morris, Justin Forsett, TJ Duckett, Owen Schmidt all can carry the ball and all have distinct  and different running styles and with the excpetion of maybe TJ are all very capable recievers. If used properly this type of depth can give opposing defenses fits as it will be very difficult to adjust to one style of runner but that does demand that the running backs find a running rhythm on very few carries.

Really not to many other surprises, I feel for David Kirtman as he played well enough to make the team and may have starter talent at fullback but with Leonard Weaver and Owen Schmidt the talent pool was just to deep for him here to crack this team; hopefully he will not clear waivers.

The last sort of surpirse is Michael Bumpus, thought to be an outside shot at making the team, got left behind as recievers like Jordan Kent and Ben Obamanu made the most of their opportunities. Seattle has a recent history of recievers growing within the organization Bobby Engram, Ben Obmanu, Jordan Kent all have grown alot since being a Hawk and I hope Micheal does clear waivers and works on his game on the practice roster to come back stronger for next year. 

Terry Shilton

As expected the Hawks won a meaningless game but it was worth tuning as the injury to Ben Obamanu and the second very good performance of TJ Duckett just further clouded position battles at both the running back and reciever positions.

The Coach’s are in for a few very tough decisions and none are likely to be harder than the running back position,  Justin Forsett has had a couple very good outings against Minnesota and Chicago, but has fumbled in each of his last two games. Despite the fumbles Justin has looked good throughout the pre-season on special teams returning kicks and punts, will that be enough? The veteran TJ Duckett started slow, was awful against Chicago but has proven to be a vaible option at running back last night rushing for 71 yards on 11 carries and 2 Td’s as well as catching 2 for 5 yards. In an early post I predicted TJ would lose his roster position as Owen Schmidt offered alot of the same things as keeping but now I think he has probably done enough to make the team, my guess is that the Hawks make room to keep both.

The reciever situation isn’t much clearer after Ben Obamanu broke his clavicle,

“That’s a tough one, certainly,” Holmgren said, adding the third-year veteran could possibly go on season-ending injured reserve when final roster cuts are announced Saturday. “He was very much a part of our plans.”

It was hoped Ben would develop into a nice slot option this season after having a great training camp. This does however bode well for my prediction that Jordan Kent will be this years Hawks breakout player of the year as he will likely get to fill that position.

As a result two players in Logan Payne and Jordan Kent who were said to be competing for one job both make the team, Michael Bumpus does not and will have to bide his time on the practice team.

The kicking battle has been interesting as well Olindo Mare wins out over Brandon Couutu both have had very good pre-seasons but experience wins out over youth in terms of kicking in the clutch for that reason I see the coach’s taking Mare.

Another dilemma the Coach’s will have to deal with is fullback, there really has not been a much publicized battle here but with a crowd at running back already developing I don’t see them keeping Leonard Weaver, David Kirtman and Owen Schmidt all have been good throught camp and pre-season, If I had to axe one, I’d keep the experience and blocking of Weaver and the versatility of Schmidt.

In all 22 players have to be cut by the end of the weekend as always there will be a few surpirses and a couple broken hearts.

I will post updates as soon as I recieve the information…